This past weekend was the Cleveland Vegfest. It was my first time attending. Words cannot fully express how amazing this event was, and what a fabulous job the organizers did, planning for so many different things to happen either simultaneously or within the confines of an eight hour period. So I won't even try to convey this with just words -- Here are my photos...

This was the view of the vendor's area. There were about 100 booths featuring local restaurants, nationally available vegan products, and non-profit organizations with free information. There were THREE different booths with vegan icecream, also candies, personal care items, T-shirts, buttons, stickers, full meals, books and much more.

If you have never been to a Vegfest -- it is such a great way to get inspired, to learn, to find resources and to connect with amazing people. There are now VegFests put on all over the country, some are one day long, others are two days. Some like this one are free to attend -- which is really amazing since they often bring in internationally acclaimed speakers.

﻿ ​ It was great to catch up with old friends! On the left is my daughter Sarina, with artist Victoria Hart, and me.

Below L-R is me, John Pierre, author of the newly published, Strong Savvy Safe, who is planning to build an animal sanctuary that will also be a a retreat center and safe space for battered women. Law Professor Sherry Colb, (who I have written more about below) Marla Rose Co-founder of VeganStreet and my daughter Sarina.​​

My daughter Sarina (who is just a few weeks away from graduating with a degree in biochemistry) managed to join me for the weekend. We took turns selling books at our booth, and she also presented a food demo where she created some delicious and simple gluten-free vegan snacks.

I finally got to meet Keith Allison -- the public school teacher who lost his job after posting a photo he took on public property of a small local farm, on his FaceBook page. Keith contacted me after I blogged about the drama I had with our local natural foods coop -- the Lawrence Community Mercantile. The Merc fired me for blogging about the greenwashing I saw on the local meat and dairy farms that they purchase products from, and for raising issues about their attempts to stifle free speech (which many find contrary to the coop movement's values Keith has a GREAT presentation about what happened to him HERE.

I gave a presentation titled, "The Real Reason Paleo is Popular, Why the Issue of Gluten is so Important for Vegans." My daughter attempted to film my presentation with an I-phone that kept turning itself off unpredictably every few minutes - so we now have about a dozen disjointed clips of my presentation. She is planning to create a YouTube from these (as best she can) which we will link to here when we can for those who would like to view my presentation.

This was about four hours AFTER the vegfest ended -- in the bar at the hotel where we all were staying. You may recognize Law professors Sherry Colb, (3rd from left) who is the author of, Mind if I Order the Cheeseburger, and the just published Beating Hearts: Abortion and Animal Rights. and Gary Francione, (2nd from right) author of​of, Eat Like You Care. Standing up is Karen Budke, co-founder of SAEN. Sadly -- I had to bail about midnight, because I desperately needed sleep, but it was the perfect after party for an incredibly inspiring and connecting event.

GREAT job Cleveland Vegan Society! I know there were between 100-200 volunteers that all worked to make this event so successful. Your attention to detail was exceptional -- from the feather-free hotel rooms you provided, to the special vegan menu you worked with the hotel chefs to create -- we all appreciated your efforts. You have inspired many of us more than you will ever know.